You’ve done all you can, prepared a world class professional resume or kick-ass proposal. A few days later you receive a phone call. They are interested in conducting a preliminary interview over the phone.

While the phone is a less common medium for interviews these days, with the advent of Skype and Google Handouts, they are actually still quite prevalent for the busy Recruiter/Hiring Manager/Investor.

You are given a time for the phone interview. Now how do you prepare?

No worries – Here are five simple techniques to ensure your success.

Tip #1 for a Phone Interview: Make Sure Your Equipment is Fully Functional.

Chances are, you only use a cell phone so make sure that it is fully charged. You should also make sure that you are in an area with great reception, so if your home has spotty connection issues go to a quiet place where service is guaranteed.

Have your phone compatible earphone or Bluetooth earphone ready and waiting. The phone interview may go on for some time and you don’t want to be holding your phone to your ear for an extended period. Free hands will also come in handy for Tip# 5.

Tip#2: Do Your Homework. Research the Company or Investor.

In many ways a phone interview is the same as a face to face interview and the interviewer will be asking many of the interview questions that you are familiar with. Especially, the all-important question “How do you think you can add value?” A good answer to this question requires that you have a firm understanding of what the company’s/Investor’s activities and goals are.

Tip #3: Eliminate All Interruptions

You want to concentrate on your interview and you don’t want your interviewer to be assaulted by background noise coming from your surroundings. Therefore, if people have to be around you while you are being interviewed make sure they understand that they have to be silent. Similarly, ask a friend to babysit or take your dog for a walk, if necessary.

Tip #4: Don’t Forget To Smile.

Even though the interviewer can’t see you, your body language will still be transmitted.

According to research, persons can differentiate vocal intonation not only between a smile and a non-smile but among different types of smile. “Smiling affects how we speak, to the point that listeners can actually identify the type of smile based on sound alone…”. Not to mention that 84% of the message over a phone is your tone of voice, so making sure that “smiling tone” comes through is imperative.

Tip #5: Move Your Body To Increase Energy.

Ever seen those movies where the sales personnel gets up from their desk and walks around in order to close a deal? Well, that’s because walking around, making hand gestures or even standing alone increases passion and energy.

Think about it, when you are arguing passionately, it’s almost impossible to do so without gesticulating. Accordingly, if you want a high energy invigorating successful Phone Interview, make sure to move about.

There you have it, five simple Tips for a Successful Phone Interview, now you are ready to land that job or close that deal. Just be confident, you did your homework and you are ready to rock.

If I had to give you just one piece of advice to help you land your dream job, it would be to have your resume professionally written. If you can’t afford that then you should at least get some expert advice about what makes a good resume. The simple truth is that one of the most shocking things I discovered in my role as a Recruiter is that too many people just have truly awful resumes. Even worse is the resume of someone who seems qualified but who goes to the bottom of the pile because their resume is just a simple list of roles and responsibilities.

Insights from a Recruiter

As a Master’s degree educated Human Resources professional let me give you some insight into what goes on behind the scenes when you see a job advertisement in the paper or on-line.

Recruiters spend some time carefully crafting a job description that outlines the desired candidate. Pay close attention to it. We have included the desired educated, experience and of course given some idea of the duties required of the successful candidate.

Now, you as the candidate will think, “no problem, I can perform all those duties and here is my resume outlining where and when I did those things”. Except that you have forgotten that you are not the only candidate applying for that job; so why then would I as the Recruiter choose you over any other candidate?

Clearly, you have to sell yourself and how do you do that you may ask? One infallible way is to highlight your accomplishments. Remember, Recruiters get tons of resumes and in order to go through them all, we have to formulate opinions quickly. Subsequently, 6-8 seconds is enough to decide if your resume will be read further or put to the bottom of the pile. Therefore, your resume MUST be properly formatted with clear headings, relevant information (specific to that job) and contain absolutely no errors.

If you are unsure about whether your resume is ready to get you noticed; why not get your resume critiqued?

What is a resume critique?

A professional resume critique will cover all the areas that your resume must include for you to be successful in your job search. Here at Write Right International we have developed the ultimate two-page Resume Critique to determine how your resume stands in the areas of:

Finally, as a bonus we will teach you the CAR (Challenge, Action and Result) method for writing your accomplishments. The CAR technique is a popular solution to BOTH resume writing and interview situations. This is as employers need to gain a clear picture of your ability to handle obstacles and create the results they need – prior to calling you for an interview.

The interview is coming to a close and your interviewer asks, “Do you have any questions for me?”

If you are like me then you already have your two or three ‘smart’ interview questions ready to go. But what happens when the interviewer already answered your questions. You need back-up questions, right.

I was on LinkedIn today and read this post “The 5 Best Questions a Job Candidate Can Ask” and I realized that I really have missed a few tricks, so I’m sharing them with you.

1. “What do you expect me to accomplish in the first 60 to 90 days?”
2. “What are the common attributes of your top performers?”
3. “What are the one or two things that really drive results for the company?”
4. “What do employees do in their spare time?”
5. “How do you plan to deal with…?” (a major challenge: technological changes, competitors entering the market, shifting economic trends, etc.)

I highly recommend reading the original article for more information – found here.